Mason Cooley Self Quotations

Self-conscious? Try a wig, a corset, a veil, a beard. Or cultivate shamelessness.

Self-sacrifice usually contains an unspoken demand for payment.

Self-reform is the only kind that works.

Self-deception is nature; hypocrisy is art.

The self-righteous feel no need to be charming, and thus double their offensiveness.

The self-righteous rule out the possibility that they are what has gone wrong.

Not even self-love can always be counted on for support.

Babies and the old are permitted self-absorption. In between, it provokes resentment.

Self-congratulation pleases only the speaker.

Self-pity makes people callous.

Self-pity dries up our sympathy for others.

Conscience is the moralized form of self-absorption.

Guilt stirs me, but only to self-pity.

If I could do my life over, I would try to cleanse at least my pleasures of self-pity.

I tried self-sacrifice a couple of times in my youth.

Self-realization is a comedown from salvation, but still gives us something to hope for.

I am the center of the world, but the control panel seems to be somewhere else.

My self-absorption warms me; yours boils me.

When I go out, I hope to leave the worst of myself at home.

I am never more myself than in my self-betrayals.

Self-analysis always cheats.

People are not the way they are primarily in order to annoy me.

Self-realization sounds good. But what if only an enraged dwarf emerges?

Self-satisfaction and self-pity are both condemned. What are people permitted to feel about themselves?

I create my social existence by earning and spending.

Sexual attraction keeps throwing self-interest off course.

My intentions go one way, my desires another. Thus I feel both self-indulgent and deprived.

Self-criticism expands the opportunities for discourse and eliminates the need for an adversary.

Self-blame usually has an undertone of self-congratulation.

In love, self-love is always at risk.

Self-esteem is not based on itself.

Lonely people console themselves with self-absorption or curiosity.

Self-absorption intensifies isolation, but permits it to go unnoticed.

Most self-laceration is more noisy than painful.

Courage overrides self-doubt, but does not end it.

After sixty, the self-questioning of middle age is obsolete.

An adolescent is both an impulsive child and a self-starting adult.

I am easy-going right up to the borders of my self-interest.

The beginning of self-knowledge: recognizing that your motives are the same as other people's.

Self-hatred and self-love are equally self-centered.

Always clamping down on excitement is not self-control but fear.

Self-hatred is sometimes appropriate.

Self-righteous victims invite extra nails.

Our vices are attempts to combine self-medication and enjoyment.

Jealousy fuses megalomania and self-abandonment.

Without asceticism, self-indulgence would be insignificant.

True self is the part of us that does not change when circumstances do.

Self-inflicted misery smirks under its crown of thorns.